Greedy Goblin

Thursday, December 10, 2015

November ratting data with the poverty of Goons

Like in October, I processed the downloaded Dotlan data for November 2015. Let's see the ratting charts first:

Bloody Omir made quite a show in October, and with his departure came the lull. In all regions the decrease is serious. He failed to keep any players active for a long time. But fear not, Serpentis season is on its way! However to see the gravity of the situation, we must unzoom this graph to see the last one and half years and it becomes obvious that highsec is in very fast decline and lowsec isn't looking better either, while nullsec ratting is slightly increasing:

This is in accordance with the decreasing concurrent users number (the highsec casuals quit, the nullsec core players will stay still the servers go down). CCP replies to this by ... more nullsec and PvP iterations. Let's follow their example and see the null regions, though there isn't much to see here, there aren't much changes since last month:

Let's look at the alliances to see some steady growths:

When I checked the alliances, I had to look up their names on dotlan and it made me think. How can top ratters be unknown? Then it hit me, I've been comparing total GDPs instead of GDP/capitas which would be like saying Afghanistan is more rich than Iceland. So I added the current Dotlan pilot count to the list and sorted the alliances with more than 1% ratting of nullsec by rats/members on the left and sov/members on the right:

Ouch! The Imperium members are all in the bottom of the per capita lists. They are numerous, but the income of one member is among the lowest in Nullsec. So is their land per capita, where Goons are the most crowded group. It seems only the Imperium was forced to shrink by Aegis Sov, the powerhouses like Shadow of xXDeathXx, Triumvirate, Dream Fleet, Soviet-Union and the elite PvP-ers of Brothers of Tangra can keep operating with much more land for a man. So much for the "they are so rich that you can't even imagine" trolls. The truth is the they are the poorest serfs of nullsec, there is just an awful lot of them.

19 comments:

Anonymous
said...

"So much for the "they are so rich that you can't even imagine" trolls. The truth is the they are the poorest serfs of nullsec, there is just an awful lot of them"

The problem with your theory, which could be sound, is that if this is the case, then they should be only flying the ships which MoA use, because, even with a lot of people, if you want to give 10,000 of them a rolls royce, that is fairly expensive.

We should also see an end to market-fu, because they cannot sustain it, being poorer than your average high sec miner.

So, when do you predict that goons ability to control markets will end, and that they will be flying T1 fit T1 ships for all engagements?

Money where your mouth is, set a date by which you predict the collapse of goons due to a lack of isk.

After all, last I checked, Afghanistan isnt holding its sov very well, nor is the populace decked out in the latest high street names, and having high speed internet and the latest gadgets.

So, date please, that you think they will run out of ISK by. The reason for this is because if you continually say "Look, goons are about to fail, they cannot sustain this", or "Goons are failing" for enough years, it is the same as the guy who predicts a terrible event every day of the week.. Eventually he will be right, but we dont claim he has insight or prescience.

They are already flying shitty ships. In November they lost30K ships below 40M value7.5K in the 40M-125M range6K ships abovehttp://greedygoblin.blogspot.hu/2015/12/the-losses-of-emporium-in-november.html

Market-fu? Goons controlling market? Where? When?

So the date for them flying crap and control no market is "two years ago". Why did they not collapse yet? Because they made real world monetization treaties with the groups that could smash them. So first an independent, incorruptable group must be grown. That will be MoA

Oh gosh, I guess that means we're all poor then. Well done Gevlon, you win! By the power of your words alone you've made me realise that I'm poor and that goons are terrible.

Holy crap you are bad at this. You're telling people who are rolling around in ISK, many of whom, like me, have significantly more than you, that they are poor. Ratting in our own regions isn't the only way to make isk. Hell, it's not even the best way to make isk. I make most of my isk on the market in highsec alongside you, I just do it better so I spend less time and make more isk. Any nullseccer worth their salt knows that nullsec rewards are terrible so the best idea is to either make isk elsewhere or steal from people who do.

"So first an independent, incorruptable group must be grown. That will be MoA"You know who's leading MoA right? It's already corruptable. You just haven't realised it yet.

Yes, I know. Anonymous is always more rich, more powerful and has more fun than me. I made peace with that.

Joke asides, I do accept that other highsec traders make more money than me. However these traders have no reason to care if Goons get evicted. Why should any of them put their money to the front lines when he has no horse in the race?

MoA is incorruptable. MoA leadership is surely not, but most of MoA's activity is done in small gangs from an NPC station, needing no block FC, director or whatnot. Ergo, if The Mittani would give *several thousand dollars* to Gen Eve to pull the plug, the members would simply join OOS or Project.Mayhem and keep doing what they were doing and I'd keep supporting them under their new tag.

"Joke asides, I do accept that other highsec traders make more money than me. However these traders have no reason to care if Goons get evicted."Of course they do. I'm one of those traders and I am a goon. I'm certainly not the only one, I'm not even the richest. We trade in highsec because that's where the money is, but we live and we entertain ourselves in nullsec. We don't want to do any of the day to day stuff that highsec players do, we like nullsec. So yes, getting evicted would be bad.

The thing is, you always say how much better MoA would be if more traders than just you put into their budget. Well that's exactly how the Imperium works. There are a lot of traders who make a huge amount of isk and big chunks of that get fed back into the Imperium in the forms of donations, subsidised purchases and reward schemes. You looking at Imperium ratting data and claiming they are poor is exactly the same as us looking at MoAs ratting data and saying they are poor. We know it's not true as ratting isn't their only significant source of income, just as it isn't ours.

"MoA is incorruptable. MoA leadership is surely not, but most of MoA's activity is done in small gangs from an NPC station, needing no block FC, director or whatnot. Ergo, if The Mittani would give *several thousand dollars* to Gen Eve to pull the plug, the members would simply join OOS or Project.Mayhem and keep doing what they were doing and I'd keep supporting them under their new tag."Gen Eve is unlikely to be bought onto the goons side, but he certainly won't be looking to kill the goons as a whole. They are his bread and butter. A fair chunk of the isk fed to his group he keeps to fill his own pockets, and he doesn't want to lose that. Much like the drug industry, the money is in the treatment, not the cure. By paying out on the metrics you set, MoA is encouraged to damage goons enough to keep you paying out but not in ways that would actually kill us off. That's why they don't strike strategic targets. He doesn't want goons destroyed because he knows the day we are destroyed he loses his source of in-game income. He will keep this going as long as he possibly can.

"What are you doing with your tonload of ISK? Just stockpiling and being happy? (Serious question, I really would like to know it.)"I pay a good bit into the Imperium, a lot by shipping down goods and contracting them out to goons at cut prices. Most of it I put into long term investments like PLEX and some of the more unique items. I have goals to reach certain milestones of value, but that's slowed down a little as some of the PLEX I redeem each year for my fanfest tickets. I also pay a fair amount into PLEX4GOOD when it comes up.

@Anonymous: If you donate to Goons, why are you anonymous? Why don't you brag about your help? Why there are no pings "X just gave us 100B to support newbees, he's awesome". Are you such a saint that you don't even expect a "thank you" for your hard work?

Your scheme could be a problem if MoA kills were stagnating, but they are growing. Also, there is no group on their level. Gen Eve likely takes some for himself, who wouldn't? He earned it. It's much better if he PLEX-es his accounts and pays for his dread from my money than running missions and not spending his time leading.

@Amarr-Zon: don't believe a word he says. He is RMT-ing that money away or buying rare ships and jerks off front of his collection.

"If you donate to Goons, why are you anonymous?"Because I can be. No need to give out intel if I don't need to. If you need to pretend that means I'm a liar to make yourself feel better, be my guest.

"Why there are no pings "X just gave us 100B to support newbees, he's awesome""Why would there be? When you're in the Imperium you help each other out. I don't need recognition, just like my PLEX4GOOD donations are also anonymous. No, I don't expect a "thank you", because that's not why I play the game. I mainly seed cheap doctrine fitted ships so that I know that people - including myself - will always have quick access to content, which helps all of us enjoy the game and I pay isk directly into things that help achieve the same goals.

"Your scheme could be a problem if MoA kills were stagnating, but they are growing. Also, there is no group on their level. Gen Eve likely takes some for himself, who wouldn't? He earned it. It's much better if he PLEX-es his accounts and pays for his dread from my money than running missions and not spending his time leading."It's a problem regardless. Gen EVE has no incentive to kill off the goons. He has an incentive to do as much damage as possible without causing goons to collapse. The moment the Imperium collapses, he's out of pocket. You claim that your goal is to put an end to the goons, but the way you pay out guarantees that MoA will never aim to achieve that goal at the upper levels. This is why the person making the long-term and strategic decisions should be someone like yourself, that doesn't benefit from the continued existence of goons.

"don't believe a word he says. He is RMT-ing that money away or buying rare ships and jerks off front of his collection."I'd never RMT (beyond buying fanfest tickets with PLEX as allowed by CCP). A claim that I RMT is as valid as a claim that you RMT. I guarantee you I have donated vastly more to PLEX4GOOD than you ever have, so let's not be pretending I'm some monster here just because I'm in a group you don't like.

Just some notes for greater justice:- solar and soviet union show steady grow not because they are good but with the flow of pilots from recently dead Red Alliance- in terms of isk and GDP stuff, Gev you know, you don't need to carebear a lot if you already got your ships ready, accounts plexed and suicide dread parked at regroup station. When we roam into goon space they literally throw caps and supers upon our 5-10 man gang. When we visit stainwagon or drone land the locals tend not to show big ships.

"Yes, I surely believe that someone works just so he can give to the poor without even a "thank you". Totally."I don't "work" for it, I play the game and make plenty doing so. If the game was work I'd not do it, since the pay from it would be terrible. I'd be better off doing a couple of hours overtime and buying plex. Either way no, I don't need a thank you. I don't care about recognition.

"Gen Eve CANNOT avoid killing Goons. As soon as he'd start to hold back his people, they'd abandon him. Most of them want revenge on Goons, the rest want to kill as much as possible as a sport."He can't avoid killing some goons, but he can certainly make sure MoA are not in a position to do any significant strategic damage to them. MoA have had a wealth of opportunities where they could have dealt significant damage strategically to goons. Why hasn't he ever taken any of those opportunities? Why is it the damage done by MoA is limited to low impact high value targets? It's because they benefit by fighting but never totally winning. MoA will keep this going as long as they can, so they won't defeat goons. Some for sure want revenge on goons and so I'm sure he'll always keep up the anti-goon rhetoric and he'll put them in a good position to get lots of goon kills, but he wouldn't risk destroying the goons. You should look how how to incentivize them actually ending goons rather than farming a never ending supply of irrelevant kills for all eternity.

You don't need to believe it if you don't want to, but it's all the more funny that you get told how you could improve your strategy yet you continue to think you can win simply by paying people - incompetent people at that - for kills alone. You keep saying people will jump ship and yet our numbers keep increasing. You keep saying that people will run out of money but they clearly aren't. The thing you need to be thinking is that we'll still be here when CCP start to phase out NPC stations for citadels. Now how long do you think MoA will last once they lose their ability to stage out of risk-free invulnerable structures?

Extraordinary claims require remarkable evidence. As a MOA line member I can tell you there is no basis for even suggesting Gen siphons any ISK from MOA. Indeed, from my daily alliance dealings I'd say the opposite is in fact true.

"It's a problem regardless. Gen EVE has no incentive to kill off the goons. He has an incentive to do as much damage as possible without causing goons to collapse. The moment the Imperium collapses, he's out of pocket. You claim that your goal is to put an end to the goons, but the way you pay out guarantees that MOA will never aim to achieve that goal at the upper levels. This is why the person making the long-term and strategic decisions should be someone like yourself, that doesn't benefit from the continued existence of goons."

See, the problem here is you've been sipping Mitten's kool aid for too long that you can't see past goon central rhetoric. Let me enlighten you - the major motivation for the vast majority of MOA pilots, with or without Gevlon's assistance, is a strong sense of independence, of making up our own minds and setting our own goals. Sure, there may be a bit of "Grr goon" thrown in their for a bit of good RP measure, but if CFC weren't self declared king of the hill, we'd most likely be hitting whoever sat in their place as it provides content to us and makes for a more compelling and enjoyable game. The fact that Mittens and his sidekick, sion scumitomo, are IRL shitlers just adds to the fun when we murder (in game)their people.

"Extraordinary claims require remarkable evidence. As a MOA line member I can tell you there is no basis for even suggesting Gen siphons any ISK from MOA. Indeed, from my daily alliance dealings I'd say the opposite is in fact true"Well as a guy with a MoA alt I don't see how you get that impression. Certainly nothing he does suggests he's not cutting a paycheck out of it and there's certainly some gaps in the funding from what I can see.

"See, the problem here is you've been sipping Mitten's kool aid for too long that you can't see past goon central rhetoric."No, you're just unable to see the basic truth. If you guys are aiming to kill goons, why do you never take strategic fights and you always bail? Why do you only pick off the slim pickings of pilots who's destruction has no impact on the coalition? Your leadership doesn't want goons to die, they want to feed you content - like they should. If goons are destroyed, Gen Eve needs to find new sources of funding, and it's unlikely he'll find another player willing to pour endless isk into your alliance until the end of time, so he'll drag out Gevlon's funding as long as he can, and the only way to drag it out is to ensure that goons remain undefeated.

Now don't get me wrong, I think for you guys he's doing exactly the right thing, since I believe the game is about entertainment and the goal of alliance leadership should be entertaining their members, but from Gevlons point of view, he'll never achieve his goal if he can't find a way to incentivise his aim of actually killing the goons as a whole.

Also, as I said before, if we're not gone by the time CCP phase out NPC stations, you guys are going to have a rough time.